Free Republic

City council members are clearly bracing for choppy waters when a public hearing begins with a request that no one jeers. "Some people might be on one side of the issue, some people on the other," Pinole Mayor Peter Murray said. "What I want is that everyone pledge that we're going to respect everyone's opinion and there will be no catcalls from the audience." Taking center stage Tuesday night in the Pinole Council Chamber was a slugfest that needed only a ring announcer. "In this corner, wearing red-white-and-blue trunks and still upright after 221 years, is the Second Amendment, guaranteeing...

An East Bay triple-murder suspect left his cell phone behind at the scene of a Pinole burglary and then called it to get it back, unaware that a police officer was on the other end, authorities said today. Anthony Ramirez, 23, never got his phone. Instead, he is in jail, charged with killing a man in Emeryville and suspected of two other homicides in Contra Costa County, Pinole police Sgt. Matthew Messier said.

PINOLE: Assistant district attorney said there is no evidence to corroborate calls made against political chairmanAllegations by the Contra Costa Democratic Party chairman that he was the target of death threats in the fall cannot be corroborated, and no charges will be filed, a prosecutor said this week. Nagaraja Rao said he received nine threatening calls to his cell phone in November just days after the party's Central Committee voted to oppose a Feb. 5 recall of Pinole City Councilwoman Maria Alegria and Councilman Stephen Tilton. Rao told the Pinole City Council on Nov. 20 that law enforcement authorities were...

In a message likely to reverberate far beyond Pinole, voters appear to have recalled City Councilwoman Maria Alegria and Councilman Stephen Tilton on Tuesday despite an intense lobbying effort on behalf of the two by some of Contra Costa County's biggest political power brokers. With 10 of 16 precincts reporting, a large majority of voters answered "yes" to the recall question for both targets. "I'm thrilled that the people have the moxie and the intelligence to stand up against usurpers of power," said Anne Prescott, a Pinole resident and voter who was among about 60 recall supporters who gathered Tuesday...

Sniper suspect leads FBI, police, media swarm to sleepy'burb By Kristin Bender - STAFF WRITER PINOLE -- Suburban Pinole was deluged Thursday with FBI agents, local police, scores of news reporters and neighbors who wanted answers about a sniper suspect's possible connection to the bedroom community. Sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad, 41, previously known as John Allen Williams, once lived with Charlene Jackson, his former sister-in-law, in a house on Limerick Road in the Garrity Ridge housing development off San Pablo Avenue, according to neighbors and a Department of Motor Vehicles tracking system. Although she talked with FBI agents, at...